


To Carve a Path

by ahlisa



Series: Tokyo Legends [1]
Category: Persona 5
Genre: Akechi Goro gets his own confidants, Character Study, Existential Angst, Gen, I know very little about persona lore but bear with me, M/M, Mostly a character study so the ship stuff is pretty light, Post-Persona 5: The Royal, Shadow Operatives
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-08-29
Updated: 2020-09-04
Packaged: 2021-03-07 02:27:39
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 4
Words: 16,431
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26169436
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ahlisa/pseuds/ahlisa
Summary: (MAJOR ROYAL SPOILERS)After the final palace, Akechi emerges from the Velvet Room and immediately gets sucked into a mission where he'll have to team up with unlikely allies, awaken to a new power, and put his life on the line in more ways than one, all to protect his rival.(OR: A followup to the true ending, a closer look at Akechi's abilities, and the beginning of a new line of confidants.)
Relationships: Akechi Goro & Amamiya Ren, Akechi Goro & Kurusu Akira, Akechi Goro & Maruki Takuto, Akechi Goro & Persona 5 Protagonist, Akechi Goro & Shibusawa, Maruki Takuto/Shibusawa
Series: Tokyo Legends [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1910188
Comments: 14
Kudos: 48





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> So alright this fic is basically just one long and very self-indulgent set-up for a more lighthearted series down the road and relies on the following (ONCE AGAIN, MAJOR SPOILERS FOR ROYAL HERE):  
> * pretending that rehab deleted scene doesn't exist lol  
> * assuming Akechi wakes up sometime in March
> 
> aaaand that's it for now; as time goes on I'll be adding more disclaimers and the like. I should also mention that the Shuake in this fic is pretty light, since it's mostly just a character study and an exploration of what I'd wanna see happen directly after the true ending. There's a nice juicy bit of Shuake coming in a later chapter but for now we're just chillin with our murder boy.
> 
> I've already gotten it all written out but I'll be releasing the chapters a few days at a time. Again this is super self-indulgent but I hope y'all enjoy!

Goro Akechi wakes up in a jail cell and remembers. Specifically, he remembers that he’s been here before.

There’s an empty space where the cell door used to be, the one that a twin-bunned silver-haired child had explained could only be opened by him. In retrospect, it was a nonsensical explanation; she had clearly been dressed like some kind of warden, complete with a keyring at her waist, and if she had said the same thing to him now, he would’ve pointed out that she seemed more than capable of opening the damn thing herself if she really wanted to. 

But at the time, he had just woken up after bleeding out on the engine room floor, desperately clinging to two last wisps of thought as the life faded from him:  _ What a pathetic imitation _ and  _ This was the only way this was ever going to end. _ As such, he was too preoccupied with his own self-pity to absorb any of what she was saying, let alone respond. Perhaps it was only natural for his brain to be stuck on his dying thoughts, functioning at just a fraction of its regular capacity while it desperately tried to recover. More likely, without a mission to center his anger on, the only thing left to be angry at was himself.

Of course he couldn’t have done it by himself. Of course the Phantom Thieves won in the end, outsmarting him and finishing the job he’d started. Of course, even with power granted to him by the gods, he would end up losing. Of course.

“Do not mistake this for a second chance, dear champion.” He remembers a spindly crooked old man looming over him outside his cell door, his voice so deep it itched beneath his skin. His words drove him down deeper into his own self-hatred. “You have lost the game. Now this cell shall be your tomb.”

He remembers Amamiya later telling him about his own confrontation with this old man who wasn’t really an old man, and wondering to himself why Yaldaboath hadn’t just killed him on sight. He can only imagine it was because he hardly posed a threat at that point, battling his own dark thoughts in a cell of his own design, looking small and pathetic and thoroughly defeated. 

He remembers sitting in that cell for a long time before the bars gradually began to melt into each other. Far from opening the door, his mind had shut it even further, to the point where the only opening left was a sliver of light between the wall and the floor. He still doesn’t know if that sliver meant anything - if it was symbolic of his stubborn unwillingness to die, even at his lowest point, or if it was simply how the cell was designed.

Then he remembers nothing for a while, until the moment he spotted Sae-san and Amamiya in the middle of the sidewalk. That must have been the moment Maruki summoned him out of his cell, out of some romantic notion that he was important enough to Amamiya to be brought back to life.

(Of course good-hearted, savior-of-the-people Ren Amamiya would protest his death. It wasn’t because he particularly liked Akechi; worse, he pitied him. That’s what that hesitation was, that evening when he insisted that Akechi’s life wasn’t trivial. Pure, infuriating pity.)

He remembers the rest of it easily, of course. The investigation, the infiltration, the final battle. The last thing he remembers of it is the sight of Amamiya clinging onto Maruki as the crystal staircase trembled beneath him, after the two of them had punched each other like idiots for a full minute. Then whiteness, nothing. And now he’s here.

“You’re finally awake.” 

Akechi pauses in the middle of smoothing his hand down the door henge where a solid wall used to be. The girl that had materialized in the councilor’s office sometime ago - Lavenza - watches him with a pleased smile. Behind her sits the old man from before - the  _ real _ old man, his grin still unsettling but less sharp than before.

Akechi carefully steps out of his cell, still eyeing the opening like it might snap shut on him if he isn’t cautious. “So. Am I dead?” he asks, deciding to cut straight to the point.

“You are between worlds,” Lavenza non-explains. At Akechi’s impatient look, a flash of annoyance crosses her own face and she adds, “It is difficult to explain. You may not have ‘died’ in the physical sense--” The memory of that crippling pain from the bullet wound would beg to differ. “--but you currently do not exist on the physical plane. Persona-users who die in the Metaverse are normally returned to the physical plane, but the impostor Yaldaboath intercepted the process to trap you here in this cell. Now that the world has returned to order, you have been brought back here once more. As such, you are neither alive nor dead. You simply are not.”

“Right.” Akechi vaguely remembers some similar explanation from Amamiya’s info-dump in the laundromat. “Then I suppose all I have to do is leave this room to return to the physical realm?”

Lavenza frowns. “That is correct,” she says slowly, and he crosses his arms as he waits for her to get around to the ‘but.’ “The Phantom Thieves were able to fight their way back into the world’s cognition due to the bonds they had accumulated. But...”

“But the only bonds I have are with my shithead father and…him,” Akechi finishes for her. “Which means there’s a chance I’ll come back and no one will know who I am.”

The girl’s frown deepens with something dangerously close to pity. “I...cannot say for certain if those are the only two bonds you have, but yes. Those who have no bond with you may forget your existence entirely.”

Akechi lets out a humorless laugh, scrubbing his face with one hand. “Of course. The two people I despise most are the ones most likely to remember me. Fantastic.” He hadn’t said it to provoke anyone, but the insulted glare Lavenza shoots him does look better than the pitiful frown. “And what of the Shido case? Will my part in that be forgotten as well?”

Lavenza seems to ponder over that one for a while. “It is difficult to say,” she says eventually. “As I said, I don’t have a clear picture of what your bonds to the world are like. There may be some you are entirely unaware of, some that reach deeper than you’d expect. Some may remember you, if you work hard enough to bring forth the memory. Others may gradually begin to forget, the longer they are apart from you. And some may remember you only in snatches of deja-vu. None of it is certain or concrete.”

So there’s a chance Amamiya might forget him entirely. If he waited long enough, stayed away long enough… Would he throw away the glove eventually, unable to recognize where it came from? Would he someday be able to look Akechi in the eye and completely fail to recognize him?

He catches himself. This line of thought is ridiculous and unhelpful. He resolves not to think about it again.

She points past him now, at the door at the top of the steps. “The moment you step out that door, your mark on the world will be permanent. Anything before that...I cannot say for certain.”

Well, that was promising. At least it meant that there was no danger of slipping out of existence one day because he hadn’t talked to his neighbors enough. “Fine. That’s all I needed to know.” He casts another curious look at the doorway, however. “Although… I did have one last question.”

He raps a knuckle against the wall. “There was a door here, last time I was around. What changed?”

“You awakened,” the old man -- Igor -- says, the first contribution he’s had. Even Lavenza seems startled to hear him speak. He keeps on going, too, grinning like he can’t contain his glee. “Your undying will to carve a path for yourself has set you free from the shackles of your own self-hatred, giving birth to a new persona.”

Hereward. Right. Akechi isn’t sure what to say in response -- particularly, he isn’t sure how to react to the hint of pride in Igor’s spidery, nasal voice. “It was out of necessity,” he ends up saying, dismissive. “Self-preservation. Nothing particularly admirable about it.”

Igor chuckles, a knowing ‘hm-hm’ that would be irritating from anyone else. From a mysterious figure like him, it’s easier to buy that he might actually know something Akechi does not. “That is indeed the shape of the path you have chosen,” he says, still with some admiration.

Between Igor’s bizarre response and Lavenza’s vague explanations, Akechi has quickly grown sick of this room. “I’m going now,” he announces without ceremony, then spins on his heel and leaves without waiting for a response.

“May luck be on your side,” Lavenza calls after him anyway, her voice echoing up the stairs.

More nonsense, he thinks as he opens the door. Luck has nothing to do with it.

\----

The official word is that Ren Amamiya has been released from police custody, but this wouldn’t be the first time they’ve lied about how they handled a suspect. Akechi has no way of knowing how safe Amamiya truly is until he’s seen him with his own two eyes.

Still, it’s not the first thing on his agenda by far. First is a quick trip to the apartment Shido had given him, which is just about as barren and stale as Akechi remembers it. There are some clear signs of forced entry -- clothes scattered everywhere, documents littering the floor -- but, miraculously, his cash box is still right where he left it. The police really are useless without him. Even the couple of morons they left to stake out the place don’t notice Akechi slip out through the back window.

He disposes of his personal and burner phones and spends some of his stash on a new one, then spends a little more on a mediocre convenience store dinner and a night at a motel. The next day finds him spending on a pair of fake glasses and some hair ties in the underground mall - and he’ll admit to borrowing the idea from Amamiya, but he’d rather slit his own throat than destroy his hair like that again. A ponytail should do. He doesn’t know who out there will remember him and who won’t, but even a half-assed disguise like this should cover him for now.

There’s still some leftover chill in the air as he loiters around in the shady alley between the bathhouse and the laundromat, his iconic blazer tied around his waist. Even from here, he can smell the rich aroma of coffee wafting out of Leblanc every time a customer enters or exits the building. They’re the only times he can catch a glimpse of the inside - a hint of Sojiro Sakura’s pinstriped pink button-up, the sleeves rolled up to his elbows as he leans against the bar and chats someone up - a flash of Amamiya’s green apron - a glance at Amamiya’s dark head of curls as he scrubs the counter and listens to Futaba Sakura’s monologuing. He doesn’t know why he stands there watching them for so long. Maybe just to make sure it’s real.

Eventually, his stomach protests that the microwave egg sandwich he’d eaten for breakfast wasn’t enough, and he makes to leave. That’s when he sees them.

The suits at the end of the street don’t notice him as he slips back into the shadows. Their attention seems to be entirely on the door to Leblanc, their conversation hushed but still partly audible from Akechi’s position.

“...ently have the wildcard...our orders…”

“...understood...turning to base…”

Fortunately, he doesn’t have to wait long to hear them retreat around the corner. He counts out five seconds before following.

He manages to track them down for just a few blocks before they get into a car and drive away, and it’s times like these that he misses the resources and power of the police. He writes down the license plate for his own reference, but it’s not like it’s of any use to him without a database to run it through. That still doesn’t stop him from tracing and retracing the numbers in pen as he nibbles at his Saturn Potato, thinking. He could always file a bullshit complaint to get the police to trace it for him - something about a hit and run, perhaps. But no, that would only draw attention to him. They don’t know that he spotted them; they likely don’t even know who he is. He should use that to his advantage.

In the end, he winds up right back at Leblanc, just around the time that Amamiya usually gets off from work. As expected, the suits from earlier follow him from a distance, but Amamiya walks so fast and makes so many turns that they lose him halfway through the underground mall. Even Akechi loses track of him in the crowd. Sneaky bastard.

The suits aren’t nearly as guarded anymore -- possibly because they’re too distracted by their own frustration, or by their angry boss screeching at them on the phone when they report back that they lost him -- and consequently don’t notice Akechi at all as they scurry back to their headquarters with their tails between their legs. He manages to follow them all the way there, but upon arrival, he finds himself stuck on what his next move should be. A cursory internet search doesn’t come up with much information about the building--which looks far more unassuming than the suits who went in--and the street is wide open out here. Without a car, he’ll look too conspicuous if he tries to stake out the place on his own.

He’s just about to call it quits for the night and head back to his motel when a taxi pulls up beside him. For a moment, he freezes, reaching for the pistol hidden in his back pocket, but then the window rolls down and the driver smiles at him amicably.

“Need a lift?” Maruki greets.

\----

There’s a neat little trash bin strapped to the back of the seat that Akechi has begun filling with Donut-Worry wrappers. Normally he’d stay away from junk food, but fuck it, he’s not a celebrity anymore and has been subsisting off fast food so far anyway. Who the fuck cares about his complexion at this point?

“My, you sure look hungry,” Maruki comments, smiling at him in the rearview mirror.

Akechi snorts, scrubbing the powder off his mouth with the side of his hand. “Turns out it’s difficult to maintain a proper diet when you’re a dead man,” he quips.

“Right… About that…”

“Unimportant.” Not like Maruki would understand any of it, anyway. 

“Uh, I don’t know, coming back from the dead a second time does seem like quite a big deal...”

“It isn’t. I assume you showed up back there for the same reason I did, correct?”

That catches his attention. Maruki nods gravely. “They’ve been trailing him all over the place. So far they haven’t made any moves, but...that might change when he tries to leave the city.”

Leave the city? Ah, that’s right. His probation is up soon. Akechi hadn’t expected him to actually go back home, but considering the circumstances, that might be for the best. “I don’t suppose he’s ever mentioned to you when that’s supposed to happen?” he asks, picking through the snack basket sitting on the middle seat.

“March 20th, I believe. It came up once or twice during our sessions.”

Akechi rips open a package of Jagariko. “Then we only have a few days to figure out who these people are, what they want, and how to stop them.”

“Wow…” 

“What?”

“It’s just...I think I got chills just now. No, seriously!” Maruki insists when Akechi just rolls his eyes in disgust. “It feels like I’m in a James Bond movie. You’re a real natural at this, Akechi-kun.”

Akechi bites down particularly hard on a potato stick. “Don’t patronize me. This is serious.”

“I know, sorry, I know. I’ll stop.” Maruki takes in a calming breath. “Alright. So what do you need me to do?”

Akechi balances the Jagariko in his lap and pulls out a small notepad and pen from his back pocket. “Tell me everything you know. From the beginning.” He clicks his pen.

So far, they’ve only been sending one car at a time to trail Joker specifically. The rest of the Phantom Thieves have been more or less left to themselves. To Maruki’s knowledge, they haven’t been up to anything particularly mischievous in the time since Ren finally returned from prison, and in fact seem to be leading otherwise normal lives.

A similar-looking pair of suits had been trailing Maruki not long after the collapse of his cognitive reality, but he’s somehow managed to make them think he left the country and is currently living another life as a taxi driver named Takase Yasuda. Judging by all this, the natural conclusion to draw is that they’re being targeted by the dregs of Shido’s entourage, but that doesn’t explain what Akechi heard earlier.

“‘The wildcard’,” he recalls, tapping his pen against the paper. “That word came up when I spotted them staking out Leblanc.”

Maruki blinks at him in the mirror. “Wildcard? What’s that?”

“Eyes on the road, doctor.” Maruki stutters a hasty ‘yes sir’ and does as he’s told. Seriously, how did they ever have such a hard time fighting this pushover? “I can only assume that ‘wildcard’ refers to Joke...Amamiya, and his ability to conjure up multiple personas. I recall Morgana referring to him as such on a couple of occasions early on in our partnership.

“The fact that you’ve never heard of such a thing only confirms my suspicions,” Akechi continues, leaning forward onto his knees. “Shido’s research was based on yours, correct? I don’t recall hearing anything that focused on persona-users in particular. His main focus was on weaponizing the Metaverse. But whoever we’re dealing with right now clearly knows more. They’ve acquired an expertise on persona-users that has so far only been known to the creatures outside of this reality. That is to say, they’re likely far more dangerous than any of Shido’s cronies - and far more knowledgeable than ourselves.”

Maruki audibly gulps. “O-oh… Is that all?” He laughs faintly.

Akechi can’t help but agree with the sentiment. If this is what they’re up against, they’re woefully outmatched in terms of resources, maybe even in terms of manpower. “But...wait,” he mutters to himself. “If they’re not working with Shido, then…” It clicks.

“Then?” Maruki prompts.

“ _ Then _ ,” Akechi repeats impatiently, Maruki’s useless commentary beginning to grate on him, “that means they’re not here to tie up loose ends. They’re here to make use of his power.”

Akechi waits for Maruki to digest. “You mean like a recruiter? Although, that’s rather aggressive for something so simple...”

“Not much is known about the Phantom Thieves’ methods, and Shido’s research doesn’t cover the distinction between a change of heart and a mental shutdown. They’re being cautious.” Akechi leans back in his seat and resumes eating his Jagariko. “There’s also a chance they’re willing to use violence or blackmail to get his cooperation. In fact, we should operate on the assumption that that’s their goal.”

“Then we need to stop them, at any cost,” Maruki inputs needlessly.

“Right,” Akechi replies anyway, finishing his food. Then pauses when he notices Maruki staring at him in the mirror again. “What now?”

“Oh, no, it’s just…” Akechi narrows his eyes, waiting for another stupid James Bond comment. It ends up being even worse than that. “You two really do care for each other a lot. There were times when I thought maybe it was one-sided, but--”

“And if it were, you would’ve rewritten me to please him, wouldn’t you?” That wipes the smile off his face. Good. “That  _ was  _ all my life was worth in that world, correct? I was just a character in one of your feel-good stories. And now you’re trying to write me into another narrative. You really haven’t changed, have you?”

Maruki frowns. “Akechi-kun, I’m sorry that--”

“You were wrong, by the way,” Akechi keeps going, because he never got the chance to really rip into this asshole before, so what the hell, why not address it now? “All that romantic talk about our rivalry came straight out of your ass. You think I give a shit about whether that person rots in jail or walks free? You think  _ he _ gives a shit about me? I’m nothing more than a regret to him--a pathetic life that he failed to save. And the only reason why I give two shits about this situation is because Ren Amamiya shot a god in the face  _ twice _ and I don’t intend to walk away from this knowing someone else might gain control of that power.”

Maruki opens and closes his mouth, frowning. “W-well… If that’s how you feel then that’s that, but you shouldn’t speak for someone else. You don’t know how Amamiya-kun feels about--”

Akechi laughs. “Oh, and you do? Just like you knew exactly how everyone wished their lives could be?”

Maruki’s grip visibly tightens on the steering wheel. “I’m not proud of what I’ve done,” he admits, his voice shaking with restraint. “You’re right, I should’ve never taken control like that. I can’t make decisions for other people. That’s not what true happiness is.”

They pull over to the side of the road and slow to a stop. He can hear Maruki putting the cab in park, sees the lights flip on in response. Maruki turns to speak to him face to face, the bags beneath his eyes much clearer now in the light. “That’s why I’m telling you not to make that conclusion for him, Akechi-kun. If I don’t have the right to tell you how he feels, then you don’t have that right, either.”

Akechi is unmoved. “If you think forcing your reality on the world is even slightly similar to me drawing logical conclusions about my rival, then this discussion is pointless. I murdered him and his friends’ loved ones. There’s nothing romantic or special about it, and he’d be a fool if he felt otherwise.”

Unexpectedly, Maruki’s eyes don’t soften or turn away. Instead, his gaze becomes cooler, more neutral. Akechi decides he doesn’t like it. “You don’t think you deserve forgiveness,” he states, more fact than question.

What a disgusting oversimplification. “It’s not a matter of what I think--”

“You don’t get to choose that, either, you know.” It’s the first time Maruki has been bold enough to interrupt him. That alone stuns Akechi into silence. “If Amamiya-kun or his friends forgive you...you don’t get to choose if they do or don’t. They could forgive you even if you never apologize. Or they could refuse to forgive you even if you beg for it. Whatever they decide to do--and whatever  _ you _ decide to do--it’s not up to you how they feel, and calling them morons or fools for their decision won’t change anything at all.”

The cab falls silent after that. Maruki stares at him, clearly waiting for a response, but Akechi doesn’t have a comeback for him. He’s not wrong. But their forgiveness is inconsequential.

“And it goes both ways,” Maruki adds after a moment, taking Akechi’s neutral silence as an invitation to keep talking. “They can’t make you forgive yourself. You either become a person worthy of forgiveness in your own eyes, or you don’t. That one’s all on you.”

Fucking hell, this absolute hack. He’s abruptly filled with the urge to shoot whoever gave Maruki his license in the head.

“What exactly do you think would come of that?” Akechi sneers. Maruki’s eyes flick down for a moment, likely in response to the sound of Akechi’s leather gloves in his clenched fists. “Begging for forgiveness, saying penance, confessing my crimes? It won’t undo anything I’ve done. It won’t give Haru Okumura closure, or bring Futaba Sakura her mother. It won’t un-shoot the bullet I put in Ren Amamiya’s head. The only reason why anyone would seek forgiveness is so that they can selfishly reassure themselves that they’re still good people. I  _ know  _ what I am. I don’t care if any of them forgive me. What I’ve done is beyond forgiveness, and I’m not about to waste anyone’s time trying to make it happen.”

“But if they did,” Maruki says helplessly, and before he can finish whatever bullshit sentiment that was, Akechi pops open the door and climbs out. “Wait, Akechi-kun!”

As he slides out of the cab and onto the sidewalk, the window closest to him rolls down halfway. Maruki leans over the console to shoot him a disgustingly manipulative puppy-dog frown. “Please, let me drive you home.”

“We’ll rendezvous where we met up earlier tomorrow at noon,” Akechi continues, ignoring him. “Don’t keep me waiting.”

“Shouldn’t we exchange numbers, or something?” Akechi slams the door shut and starts walking. “Well, that could’ve gone better,” he hears Maruki say to himself. Prick.

The ground is wet with salt and the remains of winter as Akechi storms down Central Street. If this were the other world, the one before the last, people would be whispering to each other as he passed, daring each other to come up and talk to him. Now, he’s barely even a blip in their peripheral vision, wordlessly cutting a path through clusters of laughter and easygoing conversation.

His feet, inexplicably, take him back down to Aoyama-Itchome, even though it’s well past midnight now and the temperature has dropped below what is suitable for his outfit. He reasons that there’s no other way of knowing if Amamiya made it back home safely, though the argument is weak and he’s too tired to think of a better one. The lights inside are off, but he thinks he can still see Amamiya’s silhouette slotted against the window upstairs, unable to sleep. He thinks, at the end of the day, even someone like Joker can’t shake off the nerves when they know that something’s not okay. 

He wonders if Joker was ever arrogant enough to make these sorts of claims about him. He must have; Akechi was playing a role for most of the time he knew him, and Joker saw through it eventually. Was that how he knew? The last words he said before Akechi bled out in the engine room, did he say them because he knew it was what Akechi wanted to hear? Or perhaps he simply said them because he wanted to.

Only two people in the entire world came to mind back in that stark, blue room. It still feels like two, even now. Maruki never knew Akechi personally; never knew who he really was. He likes to think he understands Akechi more than he does, but even now he’s still padding people’s stories with his own ideas. He can’t see through him the way Shido did. The way Ren did. It leaves Akechi feeling wrong-footed and a little empty, to be misinterpreted like that. 

In an ideal world, he wouldn’t ask Ren’s forgiveness. It’d be fine just to be seen by him. A real person, not a fantasy. To be known by someone who won’t turn away from the ugliness in him for their own convenience. But even that feels like asking too much, now.

He stands outside of Leblanc, and Ren’s silhouette disappears from the window as he rolls over to sleep. In the darkness of the alley across the street, Akechi begins to understand what it means to be a dead man.


	2. Chapter 2

Daisuke Shibusawa hates having a car.

In the first place, he only has one because his family lives about an hour from the city. At first the car was strictly for family emergencies, but invariably he’ll get requests from girlfriends, guy friends, and even coworkers to drive them somewhere last-minute. This by itself is fine; Shibusawa isn’t a pushover, but he likes to think of himself as the chill, easygoing friend who just goes with the flow. But driving anywhere  _ within _ Tokyo is a fucking nightmare, so normally, he refuses those kinds of requests point blank. It’s a bit harder to say no to Maruki, though.

“Aren’t you a cab driver now? You can pick him up yourself, can’t you?” Shibusawa says instead. He’s just gotten home from a particularly tough day at work--six meetings in a row on a Monday morning, good lord--and keeps stealing a longing look at his couch. He hasn’t even gotten a chance to sit down, yet.

“I know, but I can’t get away from work right now,” Maruki sighs, and even over the phone he can hear that puppy-dog pout. “Please, Shibusawa. I’m worried about him. He hasn’t come out of that building for a whole week, and I don’t want him to finally get out of there and feel like I forgot about him.”

Shibusawa shuts the door and leans back against it. Should he even bother toeing off his shoes right now? “Remind me who this kid even is? Also, why is he locked up in some random building? You’re sure this isn’t a scam, right?”

“It’s Goro Akechi. Remember? The one who was, um…”

“Dead, right.” Maruki had mentioned a lot of things that night he came over to his apartment, drunk and sad and in dire need of a friend. The dead guy whose existence was erased from the world wasn’t exactly the weirdest part of the story, but it had stuck out to him for other reasons. “You said he came back to life, again. And that he turned himself in to save that Shujin kid, again. But who’d he turn himself into this time? Some kinda secret police?”

“We don’t know who they are. All we know is that they’ve been following Amamiya-kun everywhere and were trying to stop him from leaving the city. I managed to get some of them off our backs on the road, but Akechi-kun got outnumbered at the station… He told me he planned to get captured so he could get more intel, and that I should just wait outside until he escapes, but it’s been a while and I can’t keep putting off work like this…so...”

The story had been so absurd and movie-like that Shibusawa had almost forgotten what the whole purpose of it was. He sighs. “So you want me to be a getaway driver? You know this could be insanely dangerous, right?”

“He said he’d try to negotiate peacefully first, so…”

“And if that doesn’t work out? How do we even know if he’s alive?”

“He said to wait a week and a half before assuming that.”

Another sigh, much louder now. “‘He said’ this, ‘he said’ that. Aren’t we the adults in this situation? What do  _ you _ think, Maruki?”

There’s a moment of silence on the other end. Shibusawa toys anxiously with the heel of his shoe. “I believe in him,” Maruki says eventually.

Shibusawa slips his heel back into his shoe and sighs one last time. “Alright. Then I guess that’s that.”

\---

To his surprise, it only takes about an hour of sitting there just letting the car idle by the sidewalk before Goro Akechi finally emerges from an unassuming office building, looking pale and exhausted.

Shibusawa recognizes him by the haircut and blazer Maruki had described. He gets hit with a sense of deja-vu as he watches the kid scrub his face with a gloved hand and scan the area for Maruki. As if he’s seen this guy before in passing, on a train, in the street, maybe even on some variety TV show. Is this what Maruki was talking about? Was this guy really famous in some other time, only to have his existence wiped from the world’s memory? He wonders what his impression of this Goro Akechi had been before all that.

The kid looks disgruntled as he walks down the sidewalk, passing his car. Shibusawa honks the horn. “Goro Akechi-kun!” he calls after him, watches the way his shoulders tense as he slows to a stop. Shibusawa hangs his head out the window and waves when he looks over. “Maruki sent me. Get in.”

Akechi still hasn’t turned around fully. “Where is he? Why didn’t he come by himself?”

“Even he’s got work, you know.” When Akechi continues to just stand there, his body language screaming fight or flight, Shibusawa adds, “That’s right... He said you might not trust me, but what did he tell me to say…? Ah!” He flashes a grin. “Adam Kadmon is here to pick up her reward! Does that mean anything to you?”

For some reason, Akechi’s lip curls in disgust. Despite this, he dutifully marches himself over to the car and gets in. “Kichijoji,” he says once he’s all strapped in.

“You know  _ I’m _ not a cab driver, right?” Shibusawa mutters, but starts the car and drives off anyway.

Maruki had described Goro Akechi as a good person who made some mistakes and has a lot of insecurities because of it, but Maruki is also the kind of person who would look down and get his nose flicked if you told him he had something on his shirt, so Shibusawa has learned to take everything he says with a massive grain of salt. He tries to run through the basics of everything Akechi has supposedly done. He knows that he was the one behind the mental shutdowns, that he tried to kill the Shujin kid, and that he helped the Phantom Thieves stop Maruki knowing that he might disappear because of it. That last part seems almost too romantic, though, like the kind of thing Maruki would want to see happen in a book or TV show. Could that have been part of his cognitive reality, too? It does seem to track with what Akechi did a few days ago - throwing himself into danger to protect the Shujin kid - but that doesn’t mean there wasn’t an ulterior motive there. 

“Hey.” Akechi’s voice brings him back to the present. “You haven’t told me your name.”

“Oh. Uh, Shibusawa,” he blurts out, startled out of his thoughts.

“What is your relation to Dr. Maruki?”

“We’re colleagues. I mean, were. We went to the same university, so--”

“How much did he tell you?”

“I...I don’t know. Everything, I guess. It sure felt like everything.” 

“The mental shutdowns, the Phantom Thieves, the Metaverse? He told you about all those things?”

“Y-yeah. Though it’s not like I understood it a hundred percent…”

“Hm. I see.”

He’s starting to see how Maruki got so easily roped into Akechi’s plans. This guy just exudes authority.

“So…” Shibusawa coughs. “What happened back there?”

“None of your business.”

“None of my… Are you serious?”

Akechi doesn’t even dignify that with a response.

_ Well, fine then. I’ll play _ . Shibusawa drums his fingers against the steering wheel and looks at Akechi in the rearview mirror. Akechi is currently staring out the window, looking bored now that he’s gotten the interrogation out of the way. “By the way... You’re Shido’s kid, right?”

He can see Akechi’s jaw clench. “Yes. I am,” he answers shortly.

“Right. You were working for him so you could take him down.” He remembers when Maruki mentioned this during that long, long night, the way he’d waxed poetic about the tragedy of Goro Akechi. His brain had gotten stuck on that part for a while, zoning out of Maruki’s drunken rambles. Masayoshi Shido. The name still makes him cringe even now.

Shibusawa lets his mouth go on autopilot for a while as he focuses on driving. “I can relate. My dad is a real asshole. He wanted me to join the family business and become a pharmacist, then he cut me off when I decided to go the counseling route. I went from a life of luxury to TV dinners and a shitty apartment. Spent a lot of time over the years trying to get one over on him, because of that.”

Akechi has stopped responding to him. Maybe he thinks ignoring him will end the conversation.

Here goes nothing.

“That included leaking information to one of his political enemies,” he says slowly, meaningfully. His eyes are on the road as he pulls into a parking garage, but he can feel Akechi staring at the back of his head. “You know who I’m talking about, don’t you?”

After a moment of silence, he glances in the mirror again. Akechi’s face is impassive. “What exactly could the disgraced heir of a pharmaceutical company do for Shido’s campaign?”

Shibusawa shrugs. “They were looking into innovative research studies they could leverage for a future campaign, and at the time, I was a student at one of the top tier science universities in Japan. Nobody at school knew that I’d been cut off--I was very careful about it--so I still had a few board members in my pocket. Told them my father decided to support Shido after all. Besides that, I also knew a lot of brilliant people, people with ideas a lot more brilliant than mine.”

Akechi’s eyes widen a fraction. It’s kind of funny; he hadn’t expected to see that kind of expression on such a cold face. “Like Maruki,” he concludes, putting the pieces together. “Then that means you’re the one who sold him out. You handed his research over to Shido.”

“I was desperate to be useful, yeah.” For some reason, Akechi’s face wrinkles. Shibusawa wonders if they’re more similar than he thought. “So desperate that I ruined my friend’s career. I really believed in his work, too. True, he’s a giant pushover, but his mind is just...amazing. I thought maybe Shido could use it for something good.”

Akechi snorts loudly. “That was a grave miscalculation.”

“Yeah, don’t I know it,” Shibusawa mutters. “They cut me out as soon as they found out I’d been disinherited. Then they completely forgot about me until Shido got arrested and the investigation led them back to me. I didn’t technically do anything illegal, though, so nothing really came of it.”

“Why are you telling me this?” Akechi asks, impatient.

Shibusawa snorts. “Straight to the point, huh? Well…” He pulls up into a parking space and puts the car in park. There’s a subtle shift in the air between them now, Akechi’s shoulders straight and tense like they had been when Shibusawa first rolled up.

“Maruki told me a lot about you. It didn’t really seem like the whole picture, though. He’s the kind of guy who likes to see the best in people, even the ones who don’t deserve it, so there’s usually something that he leaves out of the description, you know?” He stretches his arms as far as they can go, in front of himself, and turns around to look Akechi in the eye. “But… I’m not Maruki. I’m not a good person, and I don’t think highly of other people, either.” People who aren’t Maruki, anyway. Even then, he kinda dropped the ball on that one.

“I like to think that means I’ve got a nose for sniffing out no-good people with bad intentions,” Shibusawa continues. “So far, I don’t think you’re that. But you’re definitely not smelling like roses, either, so I’m not gonna tolerate any bullshit. You understand?”

Akechi makes an incredulous, almost amused noise. “Bullshit? Of what variety?”

“Of the ‘I let myself be kidnapped by a bunch of strangers, came out alive, and have nothing to talk about afterwards’ variety.”

“How is it any of  _ your _ business--?”

“I told Maruki everything, by the way.” Akechi stops, then looks like he’s about to start talking again, but Shibusawa doesn’t let him. “He knows I screwed him over, and we’re still friends. There’s not a single day I feel like I deserve it, but that’s how it is. So yeah, it is my fucking business if the best person I know got sucked into something terrible by some shady kid who might’ve thrown him under the bus to save his own ass. Now tell me what the hell happened back there, or I’m handing you over to the police. No, worse--I’ll hand you over to whatever’s left of Shido’s people. If my friend is in serious trouble, I have a right to know.”

Akechi proceeds to stare at him, leaning his head against his hand, mouth thinning into a fine line. He can see the kid mulling over his options, watches the gears turning inside his head. Akechi stares for so long that Shibusawa begins to wonder if it was the best idea to have this conversation in the middle of an empty car park. This kid couldn’t have a gun on him, could he? Didn’t he kill a bunch of people? Not in the real world, but... Fuck, he should’ve thought about this.

Finally, Akechi’s lips twist into a smirk. “Fine. You win.”

\--

Perhaps it should bother him that he prefers being questioned like a dangerous criminal over being spoiled with junk food like a wounded child, but Akechi finds himself liking this Shibusawa a lot more than he ever liked Maruki.

Since Akechi’s stomach starts growling less than a minute into the conversation, they decide to move to the beef bowl place down the street (notably, this isn’t anywhere near Kichijoji; Akechi can’t decide if he’s pissed that this glorified chauffeur didn’t listen or impressed that he has a spine). The soft lighting of the restaurant casts a much different effect on Shibusawa’s face compared to the dramatic shadows and dim fluorescents of the parking garage. It was a bold move; if Akechi’s gun hadn’t been confiscated earlier, that whole gambit would’ve backfired on him terribly. Was it luck? Foolishness? Bravery? He remembers wondering the exact same thing when he realized that Ren wasn’t dead.

“I didn’t sell him out.” Akechi breaks apart the chopsticks and starts digging in. The Shadow Operatives hadn’t completely starved him while he was there, but he still hasn’t had a good meal in a while, so he forces himself to take it slow. “They still don’t know he’s here. They didn’t even notice him driving Ren around. But I suppose you want more than simple reassurances.”

Shibusawa hasn’t started eating, yet. He keeps looking at Akechi like he’s waiting for him to pull a knife on him or something. “Ren is...the Shujin kid, right?” Akechi pauses to give him a  _ look _ . “Look, I know I met the guy, but there are like twenty different names Maruki told me to keep track of. Give me a break. And anyway, I don’t buy it. You must’ve given them something for them to let you go like that.”

Out of habit, Akechi tries to eat his noodles without slurping. “Is it so hard to believe? My existence has been erased from reality. I’m not a wanted man, anymore. Why wouldn’t they release me?”

“You were in there for a week. If it really was just about you getting in the way at the train station, they would’ve let you go earlier.”

“Would they? You seem quite sure of yourself.”

“Cut the bull, kid. You said you’d tell me the whole story, so tell it.”

_ Kid _ . Akechi hates that. But he forces himself to let it go for now. “Fine. But don’t interrupt me.” Shibusawa gives him that incredulous look he kept shooting at him all throughout the ride there, like he can’t believe a teenager is barking orders at him, but he doesn’t argue. Good.

“I was being facetious earlier, of course. The world may have forgotten me, but they still found my file. It’d been collecting dust ever since the Shido case opened up back in December. You see, everyone’s memories may have been wiped clean of me, but the paper trail linking me to Shido still existed. They’d dismissed it as a dead end when they failed to find me, but now…” Akechi gestures vaguely to indicate his  _ aliveness _ .

“I told them a version of the truth. That includes some things I knew about the Phantom Thieves - their targets, their methods, their M.O. - and some half-truths. I told them, for example, that the wildcard they’ve been following lost his abilities after stealing Maruki’s heart. This is technically true, but that’s only because he lost access to the Metaverse. If they were to grant him access again--as I’m sure they have the ability to do--he could probably still summon his personas. I also told them that the Phantom Thieves have disbanded and lost their powers as well.”

“So you protected them.” Shibusawa sounds skeptical. “Why?”

Akechi glares at the interruption. “Would you tell the whole truth to an organization whose motivations are unclear? No. Now let me finish.” Shibusawa raises his hands in surrender. He’s starting to like this one a lot less.

“During the interrogation,” Akechi continues, “they seemed rather interested in a special ability of mine. So I offered them a deal: they could put me on trial for the mental shutdowns and see how the court handles it, or I could use my power to help them with whatever research they were working on.”

“Wait.” Akechi should really just stab him. “You chose to team up with the people who kidnapped you? The same people who were trying to kidnap Ren-kun.”

“And how would  _ you  _ handle a situation where your options were either fighting your way out of an advanced underground facility or prison?”

Shibusawa scratches his face. “Advanced underground facility? That place? Geez, I guess looks are deceiving…”

“The choice was clear,” Akechi keeps going, at this point just to get it over with. “At least, I thought it was. I was of much better use to them in a lab than behind bars, and there was no guarantee I’d be given an adequate sentence in court, even with the right evidence. There’s hardly any legal precedent for ‘cognitive’ murder, after all. But it took them quite a while to make up their minds. I suppose there must’ve been some very vocal people insisting against it.”

“I can imagine,” Shibusawa mutters, eyeing Akechi warily. Akechi offers a pleasant Detective smile that seems to unnerve him even further. “Right. So that’s it then? You bargained your way to freedom, just like that?”

Akechi shrugs, taking a sip of water, then a couple of gulps when he realizes how thirsty he actually is. “I’m not out of the woods just yet. I’m not sure if you noticed, but those men who were following Ren have been assigned to me. Don’t look,” he adds when Shibusawa starts whipping his head around like an idiot.

Shibusawa ignores him and keeps scanning the room until he sees them sitting at the other end of the room. “Oh, fuck.”

“Mm,” Akechi agrees mildly. “They’re giving me a day to pack my things. After that, I suppose they’ll march me down  _ somewhere _ to prove that my abilities are real. If I can’t prove myself, I’ll be heading straight to prison, no questions asked.”

“Whoa. Uh…” Shibusawa leans in and lowers his voice, his eyes fixed on the men who are watching them. “So, can you do it? Or were you just talking out of your ass?”

Akechi doesn’t answer for a moment. He doesn’t want to explain that the ability was specific to Loki, or that he’s been having a hard time sensing Loki within himself lately. He certainly doesn’t want to explain  _ how _ Loki obtained that power in the first place, either. “I don’t know,” he ends up saying. “But if I can’t do something as simple as that, then perhaps I don’t deserve my freedom in the first place.”

“Simple, huh?” Shibusawa mutters. “Well, good luck, I guess.”

“If I have to rely on luck, then I may as well turn myself in now.”

“Oh, learn to take a--geez, nevermind…”

They eat in uneasy silence after that. The topic of prison has Akechi recalling the days he spent in between interrogations, locked in a windowless room so cramped it reminded him of the days he spent in that blue jail cell, with nothing but a sliver of light at his feet. He remembers thinking that actual prison couldn’t be much worse than this, but it would still be a massive waste of time if he went. As much as he preached about the justice of the law on TV, he’d seen enough of the inner workings of the legal system to know that its version of justice was typically underwhelming. He wouldn’t have gone after Shido on his own if he thought otherwise.

“Well, it sounds like you’re telling the truth,” says Shibusawa. Akechi doesn’t even so much as look up from his bowl, the hunger from the past week suddenly creeping up on him. “Kind of. All of this stuff is pretty hard to believe, but it makes sense considering what Maruki’s told me. As for you… You’re not exactly the asshole with a heart of gold that Maruki thinks you are, but you’re also not entirely evil. Just a self-interested jerk whose goals happen to align with others.”

Akechi takes a break from eating to gulp down some more water. “I’m not sure what you mean by ‘entirely evil,’ but I can’t say I disagree with the assessment.”

Shibusawa scoffs. He’s leaning his head on his hand now, chewing thoughtfully and popping bits of food into his mouth in between sentences. “That being said, there’s clearly more to your motives than plain self-interest. You dodged my question earlier about why you protected the Phantom Thieves. Sure, you didn’t have to be honest about everything, but why lie about that specifically?”

“Isn’t that obvious? I still know next to nothing about the people I’ve just joined and have no way of knowing if their peacekeeping mission is truly what they say it is. There’s only so much I can do from the inside. They’ll be keeping tabs on me, but they won’t pay as much attention to people who are more or less civilians at this point. In other words, we need someone on the  _ outside _ , someone who can keep this organization in check.”

“‘Someone’ being the Phantom Thieves.” Akechi nods, and Shibusawa stares at him with a strange look, like he’s putting together a puzzle. He and Maruki are more alike than he thinks. “You trust them.”

Akechi rolls his eyes. “Don’t read too much into it. The Phantom Thieves may be a bunch of idealistic idiots, but their goals overlap with mine more often than not and they have so far always managed to get the job done. Granted, I have no way of comparing them to the people who’ve just hired me, but considering what information I do have at the moment, I’d place my money on them.”

“Huh. Okay.” Shibusawa sets his chopsticks down and taps his fingers against the table. “I get it. You’re like the Gray Pigeon to their Feathermen.”

He freezes. “Excuse me?”

“Well, he wasn’t really part of the Feathermen, right? He was made to be their enemy. In the end, he still chooses to side with them, but he never joined them officially. They’re on the same team, but he still works alone. Am I right?”

“He died,” Akechi says flatly. “He can’t ‘work alone’ if he’s dead. Did you even finish the game or just give up before the final boss?” Not that Akechi has ever played it himself; he couldn’t afford a console growing up and never had the time as a teenager, so all of his information comes from videos on the internet.

“Oh, come on, we all know he isn’t  _ really _ dead.”

“He had a  _ bomb _ inside him, how the hell could he  _ not _ be dead?”

“But if you look at the deleted scenes from the remake, there’s a hint where--wait.” Shibusawa peers at him. “You didn’t steal your backstory from Featherman Seeker, did you?”

Akechi has fantasized about stabbing a lot of people, but this is the closest he’s come to doing so in a public restaurant.

Shibusawa raises his hands again. “Okay, you can stop looking at me with murderous intent. I’m just saying, you’re not as much of a lone wolf as you project yourself to be. Maybe those guys aren’t your friends, but it sounds like you consider them your allies.”

That mollifies him for now, but this man is walking on some thin fucking ice if he thinks Akechi is the  _ Gray Pigeon _ of all things. Gray Pigeon isn’t even  _ canon _ . 

“Allies…” he echoes, getting back on track. “Perhaps you’re right. With Shido gone, there’s no reason for them to be my enemy. And we do seem to have more reason to work together than against each other at this point...though I’d never truly consider myself a Phantom Thief.”

“See? Gray Pigeon. AH!” Shibusawa narrowly dodges Akechi’s attempt to stab his hand. He ends up knocking his arm into a nearby waitress, who just barely manages to regain her balance without dropping the food she’d been carrying. She’s quick to assure them she’s fine, but a few patrons start glaring at them after that.

They wrap up their meal quickly, Shibusawa bowing a dozen times at the register and glaring at Akechi until he bows once as well (and with such a graceful smile and apology that the waitress is visibly moved. Shibusawa later comments that he’d be screwed if his face was ugly, to which Akechi smoothly responds that this is why he chooses to remain handsome). 

Shibusawa finally drives him over to Kichijoji, and the ride there is amicably quiet now that the mutual suspicion from earlier has been resolved. All in all, the morning hadn’t exactly been ‘fun,’ but it had been somewhat refreshing. The only other people he could discuss those things with have always been caught up in their own feelings toward him--Takuto Maruki, who brought him back from the dead to fit his ideal narrative--the Phantom Thieves, who wanted to make sense of his violent character to help them cope with their own baggage--Ren Amamiya, whose hero complex wouldn’t let him give up on a hopeless case. Getting an objective take from someone who wanted nothing from him wasn’t something he’d known he wanted until now.

Still, it’s not as if Shibusawa has him completely pinned. He still sees Akechi as a child, and judging by the way he speaks around him, he isn’t entirely aware of how dangerous Akechi can be. Ren Amamiya remains the only person in the world who truly knows and respects his capabilities. The only person who could possibly hope to match it.

Ren Amamiya. His rival. His  _ ally _ . It shouldn’t feel right after all that happened, but the word just clicks so easily, like a puzzle piece snapping into place. That word certainly seems to suit them. He wonders if Ren would feel the same way.

“So what now?” Shibusawa’s question brings him back down to reality. He realizes that they’re parked right by Electric Town, just a stone’s throw away from the promenade.

Akechi’s head hurts just thinking about that question, though. “Packing my things and getting ready for tomorrow, I suppose,” he sighs, rubbing his temples. “I’ll need a full day’s rest at the very least.”

Shibusawa hums. “And after that? Assuming you, uh...manage to pull it off.”

“Then I’ll become one of them, I suppose.”

“Meaning...what? What are they gonna have you do?”

“I suppose I’ll find out. Or not.” Akechi slides out of the car, shuts the door, and knocks on the driver-side window. “Thanks for the ride. I trust you’ll pass the highlights of our conversation today onto Maruki.”

“Ah, hold on a second.” Shibusawa rolls down the window and fishes something out of his pocket. “Here. I owe you one for keeping those shady guys off Maruki’s tail.”

Akechi accepts the card from him and briefly scans its contents. 

> _ Daisuke Shibusawa _
> 
> _ Private Investigator _
> 
> _ xxx-xxx-xxxx _

His eyes stick to the second line. “You said you studied counseling in college.”

“Yeah. I did some teaching and counseling for a while, but that job really wasn’t for me. Everyone said I was ‘too rough around the edges,’ or something. It’s good to know human behavior as an investigator, though.” Akechi looks up to see Shibusawa smirking at him. “What, you didn’t know? Maruki told me you were a detective in your former life. Looks like you’re getting rusty.”

In retrospect, it  _ is _ rather obvious. This entire morning has been one long interrogation, and his behavior in the garage versus at the restaurant had quite the good-cop bad-cop vibe to it. “Well played,” Akechi admits, pocketing the card. “You knew it’d be easier to get information out of me if I didn’t know you were a professional.” If you could call private investigators ‘professionals.’

“Yep. Cat’s out of the bag now, though.” Shibusawa wags a finger at him. “Hold onto that card, alright? It costs money to make those things. And make sure to call me if you need anything. I’m no Phantom Thief, but I can still lend a hand.”

Akechi blinks, thrown by the offer. “Lend a hand? What for?”

Shibusawa frowns at him like he’s being willfully obtuse. “You said you might be going to prison, right? I know a couple of defense lawyers who could take up the case. And if you’re not, well, call me anyway. It’s not every day I get to meet a former famous detective. I could always use a second opinion.”

_ I wasn’t a real detective, _ he should say.  _ I never really solved anything _ . But for some reason, he keeps it to himself. “Understood. I’ll see you around.”

He tries to leave, then, but in the millisecond before he turns away, the world slows to a stop. It narrows in on the two of them, the people and trees and storefronts around them quietly falling away, and he feels something lock into place. Something, somewhere in the universe, melds their paths together. He looks at Shibusawa and sees a man hanging by his ankle--ultimate surrender--circumspection--suspension-- **The Hanged Man** . He sees bits and pieces of the world in him, sacrifice and broken wheels, and the universe feels just a little clearer. He senses, inexplicably, that a bond has been sealed. He knows, without question, that a contract has been made.

Then, just as abruptly, time moves forward again. Shibusawa gives him a little salute and a grin. “Later on, Gray Pigeon.”

Before Akechi can even utter a single syllable, Shibusawa rolls the window back up and drives away, completely unaffected by whatever the hell just happened.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Alrighty, more disclaimers!
> 
> * Didn't mention this earlier but this is not at all beta'd lol apologies for any minor mistakes  
> * After some consideration, I'm downgrading the ship tags to just & tags since the romance isn't the main focus (I simply find it impossible to write them without them pining over each other a little bit lol)  
> * I know nothing about what actually qualifies someone to peer review a paper but listen I just really wanted wannabe Spike PI Shibusawa  
> * I haven't played P4 Arena but I did my best to research the Shadow Ops on my own  
> * I forgot to mention this last chapter but tbh I think the simplest canon piece of evidence for 'Akechi survived the engine room' is that Ryuji is alive. Could just be that that's how it works; it's not like we've ever seen anybody else DIE die in somebody else's Palace, afaik
> 
> The next two chapters are gonna be a bit shorter but I didn't feel like they belonged together so that's why I split them up. Also! I mentioned this briefly last time but there will be more to come after this fic wraps up. I hope you like Akechi-centric gen character analysis woohoo
> 
> Thanks for the comments and kudos all!


	3. Chapter 3

Ren Amamiya likes to believe that there’s no such thing as a worthless book, just books that shine brighter than others. That’s why he always takes his time skimming through the school library’s collection and excavating the book towers of Jimbocho. Sure, some of the books can be pretty dense, and the language is sometimes outdated or dry, but even with the poorly written ones, he always comes away from it feeling like he’s become a little smarter, a little nicer, a little stronger. He re-sees the world through the kindness of Zorro, dances through it with the charm of Carmen. Every book from the snorers to the page-turners has always communicated  _ something _ to him, meaningful or otherwise.

The book he bought about Hereward the Wake is the most frustrating thing he’s ever wasted his money on, and he’s bought a rock of salt for one hundred thousand yen.

In the first place, it had taken him an entire afternoon splunking the depths of Jimbocho to find just  _ one  _ book about Hereward. Even then, he had kept looking, because that first book was just a massive tome full of scholarly articles that weighed about two Monas and seemed likely to put him to sleep. He eventually found another one--the one he’s reading now, curled up in bed listening to the rainfall--but now that he’s eleven chapters in and hating his life, he wishes he’d gone with the textbook after all. Even Morgana has abandoned him, in favor of sneaking downstairs to watch TV with his dad (who has surprisingly warmed up to Mona already, unlike his mother. Ren is admittedly uncomfortable with this development; he hadn’t expected Morgana to have a better relationship with his dad than him).

Over the past hundred pages, Hereward has done nothing but break out of someplace and murder a bunch of people, over and over and over again. If he hadn’t read the back cover, he wouldn’t have even known  _ why _ Hereward was doing all of these things (for revenge, of course, and to win the girl). All of it is brutal--and not even in a badass-fun way or a gross-fun way. Or maybe it would be one or both of those things if it wasn’t so goddamn repetitive. Even Crow would be sick of it at this…

His chest squeezes. He sighs, lets the book rest open-faced on top of his eyes.

Fine. Maybe this is less about the book and more about the person it reminds him of. Maybe he’s just frustrated that he can’t glean anything about what Akechi was thinking from a fictional hero that doesn’t resemble him at all. And maybe he’s a dumbass for thinking this would make him feel better.

Ren tries to focus on the sound of the rain outside, calming himself down. Akechi must be alive. There isn’t a doubt in his mind that this is absolutely true. If he hadn’t intended to make it out alive, he wouldn’t have let Ren keep that glove, and he would’ve given him a proper goodbye. Maybe they won’t see each other again for a long time, but they  _ will _ meet again someday. That’s why he can’t keep being sad about it. Akechi would be disgusted with him if he saw him like this, pining over the memory of a dream. He still wishes they’d had more time, though. To talk. To fight. To understand each other better. Just enough to flesh out the memory of that Akechi a little more.

He can’t help but think that it would never be enough, even if they did see each other again. That’s how it’s always been between them. Every time they met up in Kichijoji, Ren would tease out the competitiveness in Akechi little by little, until finally the mask popped off and even then he wanted to see more, couldn’t stop himself from provoking him. Each time they fought, each time they casually challenged each other--every loss left him wanting to win even more, and the satisfaction for every win would only last for a little while before he wanted to see him again. Akechi must’ve felt the same; why else would he always say yes?

Ren shuts his eyes and focuses on the tinny sound of jazz coming from his phone, smooth over the white noise of the rain outside. It doesn’t hold a candle to the live music from the Jazz Jin, but it makes his heart ache with nostalgia all the same. He doesn’t even really listen to jazz, not outside of that club. Not without Akechi.

He sighs again, loudly, shaking away the memory of Akechi’s eyes in the low lighting of the club, dark crimson and curious. He should give up on the book and just google him or something.

Wikipedia seems to be as good a start as any. He balances the book against his chest as he types in the search and clicks around. It takes some skimming and a lot of scrolling, but the article gives him a pretty good picture of the Hereward who apparently represented Akechi’s new self. Exiled by his father, driven by vengeance. Possibly just as violent as the book had made him out to be, but with a purpose towards resisting a king he didn’t believe in. It’s hard to imagine how a man like this could possibly be twisted into the legendary Robin Hood, but that’s probably the point.

_ That does sound like him _ , he thinks, thumbing idly at the screen as his eyelids grow heavy. He remembers the cold resolve in his eyes that evening in early February, the last time Ren ever got to speak to him one-on-one. He remembers his own frustration dwindling as he realized he couldn’t change his mind, the fight slowly draining from his shoulders--but no, that wasn’t right at all. That fighting spirit of his could never leave him, least of all in front of his rival. When it came to Akechi and the feelings he inspired, Ren’s fighting spirit could only be strengthened.

_ Hereward _ , he thinks sleepily, dreamily. That look on Akechi’s face did seem distinctly  _ Hereward _ .

\--

The blood is ringing in his ears, his pulse throbbing, his skin hot and tingling with static. But the Call of Chaos still doesn’t come.

They’re not in the Metaverse, that he knows for sure. But the explanation for what or where this place is had gone in through one ear and out the other during the train ride, his brain too occupied with trying to reach inside himself and determine what power he has left. He hadn’t expected Hereward to remain with him after Maruki’s Palace collapsed, but then, he supposed that personas didn’t adhere to time travel or reality bending. More importantly, he hadn’t expected Loki to just be  _ gone _ , an empty void where malice and envy used to run deep. It hadn’t felt like Loki had left him, the moment Hereward came into being. He’d assumed that the chaotic persona had simply stepped off to the side to allow a newer, more suitable persona take the stage. Hereward had been more than adequate for the fight against Maruki. Fighting with him felt good, empowering.

But even now, in the midst of battle, with his adrenaline running high, he reaches into that space where Loki used to be and feels nothing. The anger that used to compel him forward - the audacity of these creatures who dared think they were stronger; the general injustice of an uncaring world that wouldn’t change unless he tore it asunder - it’s still there, pulsing through him. But it doesn’t respond the way it used to; doesn’t let itself manifest into a physical power, sloughing off him like a powerful miasma. It simply sits in his gut and boils.

He leaps back to gain some distance from the Shadow--a powerful angel with silver steel skin that would’ve been tough for even the Phantom Thieves, let alone one person--and whips his head around to glare at the suits who accompanied him here. They’re hiding atop a rooftop, their guns at the ready “in case he needs backup,” but it’s plain to see that those flimsy sniper rifles are like peashooters against a Shadow like this. They hadn’t even bothered to send another persona-user to protect him. It’s clear what this “test” truly was, now; they never intended for him to leave this place alive. A rather underhanded, gruesome execution. So this is what the Shadow Operatives stand for, then, or perhaps this is simply what he deserves.

“To me, Loki…!” Akechi grits out, and again, it’s like grasping at air. He cries out as another bless attack pierces through him, knocking him onto the ground. Then cries out again as the angel’s swords descend upon him, slicing through his limbs and barely missing his torso as he rolls out of the way. He pushes himself off the ground and forces his legs to run, though by now they’ve become heavy with lead.

This place, wherever or whatever it is, is spread out like an abandoned city. He leads the angel down one street before making a sharp right and barreling into an empty storefront. The angel’s wings beat once, twice as it floats past the building, energy humming and crackling at its hands. He should just kill the thing with Hereward and be done with it, but then he’ll have failed the test and be sent to prison. And even if he tried to escape this place on his own, he has no way of knowing how to return to reality without the Shadow Operatives’ help. All that aside, he doesn’t want to leave here knowing that he hasn’t done everything he can to prove himself. Knowing that he’s weak, too weak to even stand alongside a bunch of wannabe secret agents. How could he ever face  _ that person _ again if he knew he’d failed at this?

Once the beating of the angel’s wings has faded out, Akechi summons up Hereward again and gives him a long, hard look. The black knight’s shining red eyes glow at him quietly.

“I need Loki,” he demands, arms crossed.

_ You lack faith in my ability.  _ It’s the first time Hereward has spoken to him. His voice is smoother than Loki’s, but calmer and quieter than Robin Hood’s.  _ No… You lack faith in  _ our _ ability. _

“Your power is fine, but it isn’t what I need right now.” Akechi leans back against the wall and crosses his arms. “I can’t get out of this without the Call of Chaos. I  _ need _ Loki,” he repeats stubbornly.

Hereward continues to tower over him, his fingers flexing over his bow.  _ You’d truly prefer my former self? _

Akechi stares up at him. “Former self? What are you…” He realizes now. Loki didn’t disappear. He became...this. Which essentially means that he’s really, truly gone; Akechi can’t just summon him back up with sheer willpower. He laughs, an empty sound. “Of course. I should’ve known. I did this to myself.” 

His fists clench. Hard. It isn’t enough to stop the tears from welling up. “I always knew I’d be nothing without him. Without...without that power. It was the only thing that made me special--made me of any  _ use _ to  _ anyone _ . I thought I had grown stronger than that, but I was wrong. I thought I didn’t need him anymore, but I was  _ wrong _ . I...I  _ made  _ myself  _ weak _ .”

There is a long stretch of silence for a while as he stares sullenly at his feet. In the distance, the city is filled with the sounds of the angel blasting it apart, looking for him. If the suits from earlier are still around, he can’t hear them over the roar of the explosions. That’s it, then. He’s been trapped. After all that, this is where it ends.

_ Do you truly believe that? _ Hereward is still looking down at him expectantly. He doesn’t have to pick up his head to know that.  _ That day, when I came into being. Was that a moment of weakness? _

What? Akechi finally picks up his head, confused, and is faced with Ren Amamiya’s terrified frown. His breath catches in his throat.

“But then...you’ll…” Ren says. Said.

“So. What.” Akechi says. Said.

He remembers the anger in this moment. Anger that Ren would have the audacity to keep his freedom from him. Anger that he would rather choose this ridiculous fantasy over everything else--over Akechi’s own choices. He hated that he had to be the one to talk sense into him, that he had to relive his own grieving process and accept his own death all over again. He hated that, even in this, even when the stars aligned and their goals lied on the same path, he still had to fight his battles alone. He hated that he had been foolish enough to trust Ren with this at all.

But then Akechi posed the question one last time, and the grief in Ren’s face gradually subsided. Not entirely, but enough to give way for calmer emotions to reign. Resignation. Acceptance. Most importantly, a distinctive glint in his eye that Akechi held onto for a long time after. A knowing stare that made him feel, for the first time, like he’d been seen in his entirety. Not the Detective Prince. Not Shido’s puppet. Not Maruki’s twisted dream. In Ren’s eyes, he was Goro Akechi, fully autonomous and vicious and free.

_ Do you believe you were weak in that moment? _

No. Of course not.

_ Do you believe that such a rivalry could give birth to something that would fail you? _

As if Joker would dare fall short of his expectations.

_ Do you doubt the power that that moment had granted you? _

He remembers the fight seeping out of Ren’s shoulders, only to return in his fiery gaze. He remembers the determination, the wordless promise in his eyes.

_ Do you remember now? How it felt to be reborn? _

He remembers. He feels it now, heating up inside him. He reaches for it, twisting just right--

_ If you understand, then go. And do not doubt me again. _

“Understood. Come, Hereward.”

Akechi pushes off the wall, a newfound power surging through him. The weight of his pain has been lifted, his body becoming light and airy. It’s the same but different from the call of chaos. Chaos had muddled his mind, filled him with nothing but rage and bloodthirst. This-- _ rebellion, conviction, determination _ \--cuts through the fog clouding his brain and channels his anger into a clear, singular focus. He will not die here. He’s made his vows. He will carve a path through this sickening world and strike down whoever may get in his way.

Hereward is right by his side as he charges out of the building and sees the angel floating atop where Akechi’s escorts had been set up. Now they’re backed up against the corner of the roof, their rifles useless against it. He shoots a gun attack at the creature to catch its attention, then smiles when it whirls and bears down on him.

“You’re in my way.” Akechi swiftly evades its divine judgment, then knocks it out of the sky with a curse attack. If this were Loki, he would tear this trash to pieces until the rush had finally settled. Now, he calmly picks his way through the detritus of the angel’s attack, fixing his gloves and contemplating his next move.

“Now seems as good a time as any to do what we came here for.” He lifts his head up to the roof. “Don’t look away from this!” he calls out to the snipers, who simply gawp at him from afar.

The steel angel’s wings flutter crookedly as it tries to right itself, but Akechi stops it in its tracks. With Hereward looming over his shoulder, he senses that feeling inside of the Shadow--that drive, that light, that  _ fire _ \--and pulls and tears at it until it matches his own. In his victims before, this had been the part where they broke down, their minds shattered within the grip of his clawed fist. It was why they were so quick to ally themselves with him, because they recognized him as their superior, their master. Now, the angel struggles to its feet and gazes at him in awe, stunned but completely clear-eyed.

In its eyes, he sees Ren Amamiya, witnessing Akechi’s conviction and recognizing its strength. He sees the moment it clicks, that this is the path it should follow for now, even if their fates will one day diverge again. No  _ I am thou, thou art I _ , but  _ My path is yours, and yours is mine _ . No fear in its eyes, just inevitability.

When it bows its head, kneels, and bursts into light, it doesn’t reform as a new mask. Instead, it tucks itself away, another arrow in Hereward’s quiver. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This was a fun chapter to write! I feel like Hereward kinda just popped into existence and I know that's pretty much how it went for everyone but I found his backstory particularly interesting compared to Akechi's (also how is nobody else talking about how Call of Chaos is specific to Loki?) so I was happy to finally express that through fanfic.
> 
> The last chapter is coming up soon but as I keep mentioning, the story will continue after this fic. More details to come! Thanks again for reading!


	4. Chapter 4

The church they used to attend always felt different from the other buildings in the area. The vaulted ceilings, the stained glass, the gilded tabernacle, the cartoonishly bulky organ--all of it was so distinctly western compared to the humble little shopping area around it. For half an hour every week, Goro felt transported to another world, someplace that was quieter and cooler and filled with colored sunlight. He liked it better like this; he couldn’t imagine attending church on Sundays with rows of people filling up the pews, trying not to fall asleep to a series of monotone sermons. But he tried his best not to look forward to these trips, because he knew his mother didn’t like them. She’d always come out of the confessional booth looking somewhat relieved, but her face going in was always strained and serious. He didn’t think it was good for him to feel excited to go when she was obviously distressed.

If he was honest with himself, maybe that was part of the appeal. Being locked away from his mother for a while, unburdened by the day-to-day guilt of existence, just sitting quietly with the stained glass and the candlelight.

He had never gone into a confessional himself, not until many, many years later in Kanda. It had been alright. He never understood what his mother got out of it, but it did have a rather interesting effect on his abilities in the Metaverse. Initially, the resemblance to the old church back home had made him uncomfortable, but in the end the whole experience was truly nothing but an exchange of words. He wasn’t about to bare his soul to a stranger, though, so perhaps he was simply doing it wrong. Perhaps, if he was the kind of person to have regrets, he would have fallen victim to that strange addiction his mother had to forgiveness.

This confessional is different.

A melancholy shade of blue shines dimly through the window in the door, the only light source in the booth. He should be able to see shadows or people or pews or altars through the semi-opaque window, but instead he only sees a clear blue light. It’s silent in there, save for the sound of his own breathing and the creak of the wooden seat beneath him as he shifts forward. Yet once his eyes adjust to the dark, he can see a silhouette sitting on the other end of the screen, the outline of a woman he doesn’t recognize.

“Welcome.” Her voice isn’t familiar, either. It’s a deep, mature alto that reminds him of Sae-san, but without the tightness of impatience or authority. “My master is unavailable to greet you today, but you may call me Christine.”

“Your master?” It hits him, then. This otherworldly blueness, this ‘master,’ this dreamlike fog hanging over his brain. “Then this is...that room.”

“Not quite,” says Christine. He notices suddenly that her head appears to be facing the door, not him. “The Velvet Room may only be accessed by those who have signed a contract. Your contract was with the false god, Yaldaboath, and was designed to mimic the contract of the true Trickster. Hence why your wildcard ability paled in comparison.”

Akechi grits his teeth. “You’re not nearly as polite as the other one. Fine, then why am I here? What _is_ here, if not that room?”

A pause. “One might say that ‘here’ is an emergency room. It was hastily cobbled together after you awakened to your new ability.”

The Call of Rebellion. That is, at least, what he’s been calling it in the weeks since he took down that angel. Every attempt after that enemy has been hit or miss - _largely_ miss, if he’s being honest. “You didn’t foresee that, then.”

“We cannot control or predict the future, only guide those who can,” Christine replies smoothly. “Certainly, my master could see that you were different. Someone whose power had been warped into becoming that of a Trickster, now free from the shackles of those who manipulated him. But while you may have escaped from Yaldabaoth, the power he bestowed upon you has remained with you in some capacity.

“You do not wield this power the way other wild cards do.” He can hear the puzzled fascination in her voice. “Instead of becoming one with the Shadows you defeat, you walk alongside them, united but separate. It is a rather unusual case, one we were uncertain of how to handle.”

Hence why it took some time to summon him here. “Then I suppose my being here means you’ve decided on a way to ‘handle’ it?”

Finally, the silhouette in the dividing screen moves, gesturing to the booth around them. “This is our answer. A room auxiliary to the Velvet Room, designed to serve your unique ability. Although...” She drops her hands, though she’s still looking around the booth. “...I am quite surprised at the size of it. It was meant to be a reflection on the state of your heart, but...”

So Ren got an entire jail and all Akechi gets is a small booth. Typical. “If you’re here to support me, then tell me this: what are the limitations on this ability? So far I’ve only managed to use it on two enemies.”

Suddenly, a card materializes out of thin air, bursting into existence in a flash of blue flame. It depicts a figure in robes and a crown, sitting on a throne with a sword in its hand. “Your true affinity is that of the Justice arcana.” A flash of blue. The picture has changed into that of an angel descending upon the earth. Another flash. Now, a man hanging upside down. “You have also established a bond with the Judgment and Hanged Man arcanas. Shadows of these arcana will swear their loyalty to you if you can convince them of your strength. All others will be unable to forge a connection and cannot walk alongside you.”

Judgment and The Hanged Man… He remembers that moment the day before he left Tokyo, when Shibusawa dropped him off and the world froze. It happened again when Kirijo brought him in, his muscles still singing and body pumped up with adrenaline from the Call of Rebellion. They’d negotiated for hours before finally drawing up an agreement they could settle on, something that was strict enough to prevent Akechi from running from them, yet lenient enough that he didn’t feel like he was completely under their thumb. It was a generous offer for someone with a past like his.

“I’m aware,” he’d said when Kirijo brought this up. It wasn’t meant as an expression of gratitude, but she seemed to take it that way, anyway, her icy gaze melting slightly in response. That same feeling hit him again as he signed away his life, the narrowing of the world, now accompanied by the softest of whispers tickling his ears, too faint to be understood but just loud enough to be heard. He could get the gist of it just by looking at Kirijo, anyway: resurrection, redemption, reincarnation, **Judgment**. It made him feel sick, afterward, more so than he had been after Shibusawa.

He’s not sure how to feel about it, the fact that his bonds to these practical strangers ended up being so important. Or the fact that he’ll have to make more acquaintanceships like that if he wants to get anywhere with this power.

“As you develop your bonds with others, the range of your power shall increase,” Christine goes on. “And, as your power increases, so too will the range of services we provide. It will be a new and exciting journey for us both.”

She has that same tone of voice that Igor had had when he last saw him, and it makes him distinctly uncomfortable. It feels wrong, somehow, to hear these words in the shelter of a confessional booth. Confession is designed for reflection, for taking apart the past and wringing out the regrets. It had served as absolution for his mother, but it’d also reminded her of her failings, a stain that could never truly be wiped clean. Of course, otherworldly beings or not, he’d rather bash his own head in with a bible than listen to someone preach at him about repentance. But he’s finding it difficult to pin down what, exactly, these Velvet Room people want from him. If they’re expecting another Ren Amamiya, they will be sorely disappointed. He’s not exactly the boy hero type.

There’s no point in pondering these things on his own. “What is your goal, here?” he asks finally, crossing his arms and legs. Christine’s silhouette tilts its head at him. “Why help me develop my power? What purpose will it serve in the long run?”

Christine’s head remains tilted that way as she speaks. “We are merely the tools for your success. The rest is up to you. How do _you_ intend to use this power? What path have you decided to walk?”

That word again. His _path_. It had been the word he chose when he spoke to Ren that last night in Maruki’s reality. It had been the word Igor used, the word the Shadow used when it made its vow to him. But with Shido gone, and the Shadow Operatives aside, what else is left for him in this world? His mother is dead. His allies are safe. His past has been all but erased, and nothing he does now will reverse what he did back then. There’s truly nothing left in this world but to live a mundane life. Is this how Ren felt, after Maruki’s reality had been destroyed? Brimming with power and potential, the most he’s ever had, but with nothing and no one to use that power on?

He stares straight ahead at the blue light pouring in through the window, searching for another goal to latch onto, and remembers the uneasy peace of that quiet small-town church. He remembers the hardwood confessional, bulky and out of place in his peripheral vision.

_“They can’t make you forgive yourself. You either become a person worthy of forgiveness in your own eyes, or you don’t. That one’s all on you.”_

He hadn’t thought he wanted that, but one look at the place his heart created for him tells him otherwise. Foolish thing. He hadn’t even felt worthy of forgiveness as a child. There is no path that could lead him there, least of all now.

The unmistakable ringing of church bells draws him out of his thoughts. “I’m afraid it is time for you to return,” Christine says, now facing the door again.

‘Wait,’ he wants to say, but his mouth won’t move. His eyelids have grown heavy. The blue light dazzles and sparkles as he drifts off to sleep. ‘I don’t want to come back here again,’ he wants to tell her, but he’s fading. ‘I don’t need your penance. I don’t need to confess. Even if this is the so-called state of my heart, whatever path I carve won’t lead me to absolution. If I need to “forgive myself” to obtain new power, I’d rather fight without it. Don’t summon me here again.’

“Until we meet again,” says Christine, and the world goes black.

\-- **1 YEAR LATER**

He wakes up four stops away from Tokyo, the sky dark enough outside that he can see his tired reflection in the window. There are two things in his lap: his phone, hanging on for dear life at 5%, and Shibusawa’s business card. His headache abruptly returns to him. Right. He was looking for a place to stay the night.

Even in the darkness, he can still make out the reflection of the city lights over the Kanda River as the train rumbles on by. He hadn’t paid much attention to the sights on his way out, but in the quiet solitude of a midnight train, he can appreciate the familiar outline of the cityscape as it stretches out across the horizon in welcome. The past year had taken him from one small rural town to the next, each one more tedious and mundane than the last. Out there, the Shadows congregated around the small-mindedness of the people, the hopes and dreams of those who wanted to be anywhere but there. The grass is always greener, though. Shadows in the city tend to feast on apathy; there is no corner of humanity that is safe from that, he thinks.

He’s not getting his hopes up about this new assignment, though. The “strange readings” that the Shadow Operatives’ Tokyo headquarters have been getting are too vague for that. They could be anything from another Jack Frost terrorizing a grassy village to another Yaldaboath waiting to unleash its wrath. For all he knows, it’ll be done within the span of an afternoon, and off he’ll go to yet another middle-of-nowhere town.

He doesn’t think about Ren. He very specifically chooses not to.

Instead, he rubs the sleep from his eyes and takes another look at Shibusawa’s card. His last stint in Iwatodai had been murder on his wallet, and his old apartment has probably been rented out to a new tenant by now. The only other person in Tokyo whose number he has is Maruki, and crashing at his place would be a flagrant violation of the agreement Maruki had to sign with the Shadow Ops to become his therapist (which they claim is to set proper ‘boundaries’ but Akechi has his doubts on that). Shibusawa is the only one he can rely on, here. He doesn’t quite trust his phone to stay alive throughout a phone call on a train, however, so he transfers straight into the subway as soon as he hops off at the station. Miraculously, the metrocard from his former life still works.

They haven’t spoken directly since Akechi left, communicating solely through brief updates from Maruki. Shibusawa knows that he’s alive and working for the Shadow Operatives. Akechi knows that Shibusawa has been working overtime lately to upgrade to a new apartment. It’s the weakest of connections, but it’s there. The Inugami arrow glimmering quietly in Hereward’s quiver is proof of that. He still can’t quite understand how that works, though. Was that evening at the beef bowl shop, talking back and forth about what shitty people they were, really enough to form a bond like that?

As expected, Shibusawa’s office turns out to just be his apartment. He answers the intercom with some groggy nonsense before buzzing Akechi up, then takes a full two minutes to answer the door when Akechi knocks.

“Alright, alright, alright, I heard you, already,” he can hear Shibusawa yelling before he even opens the door. “C’mon, Maruki, d’you even know what time…? Oh. Shit.”

“It’s been a while,” Akechi greets. He holds up his card. “You said to call if I needed anything, correct?”

Shibusawa scratches his head. He had already looked somewhat slovenly when they first met, but now that he’s clad in boxer shorts and a greasy tee, he’s leaning less toward ‘rugged detective’ and more towards ‘trashy uncle.’ “Yeah. A year ago. Shouldn’t you be off doing some top secret mission? Maruki told me--”

"Dr. Maruki may be my therapist, but that doesn’t make him my keeper.” Akechi puts the card away and crosses his arms. “I need a place to spend the night.”

He expects some protest, even an outright rejection, and for a moment he does read one or both of those things in Shibusawa’s face. But then he meets Akechi’s eyes and must see something in them--exhaustion, or irritation, or, fuck, maybe desperation--and before Akechi can protest that he didn’t come here seeking pity, Shibusawa wordlessly steps aside to let him in. The Inugami arrow flares up a little as he begrudgingly accepts and comes in.

His apartment is bigger and cleaner than expected, perhaps because it’s meant to double as an office. There are several rooms down the hall to his right - at a glance, it looks like a bathroom and a small kitchen on the left, and a bedroom on the right - and an office space straight ahead. Shibusawa leads him into the office and gestures to the couch on their right. Akechi dutifully shrugs off his blazer and sets it out over the back of the couch as Shibusawa heads over to the cabinet.

“Say, how old are you now?” Shibusawa seems to be eyeing a shelf of liquor.

“I’m nineteen. Water is fine.” Akechi catches himself falling into old habits in his exhaustion, taking on an overly polite tone and just saying whatever sounds right. He isn’t even thirsty. “Actually...nevermind. No water.”

Shibusawa gives him an odd look, but doesn’t comment. “So. What’s it like to be back?”

Akechi notices that he doesn’t ask what he’s been up to or where he’s been. He wonders exactly how much Maruki has been telling him. “Considering I’ve only ‘been back’ for less than an hour, it feels…fine,” he decides to say. “I never thought all that fondly of this city while I was here, but it’s certainly better than the countryside.”

“Yeah? Wouldn’t know. Born and raised here, actually.” Shibusawa pours himself a drink and sits down at his desk, kicking his feet up on the edge of it. Even with the sloppy attire, he looks like he belongs there. “Y’know, that first time we met felt like some kinda weird fever dream. Kinda like right now.” Akechi scoffs. “It just never feels real, I guess. To sit around chatting with a guy who’s done some crazy shit. What’s more, that guy isn’t even old enough to drink.”

It’s not an unfamiliar sentiment. A few of the people Akechi has had to work with have expressed the same thing to him, multiple times, with an air of discomfort and disillusionment in the way they view the Shadow Operatives’ mission. His presence has even been the cause of some in-fighting, not that he cares to get actively involved in the politics. Even after a year, he doesn’t feel quite like ‘one of them.’ Just an outsider roped into helping out.

“Yes, well. It’s even more surreal that you seem just fine with it,” Akechi counters. 

Shibusawa raises an eyebrow. “Did I say that I was fine with it?”

“It seemed implied. Most people would avoid people like me unless strictly necessary. I’ve yet to meet or work with anyone who wasn’t forced to do so.”

“Well, for the record, I’m not ‘fine’ with anything you did. But I also don’t feel forced.”

“Then why let me in? ‘Because we’re the same’?” he sneers.

Shibusawa snorts. “When you put it like that, of course it sounds dumb. But we barely know each other; what other connection can we have? Isn’t it fine, to want to reach out to people who remind you of yourself? Even if it is selfish.”

Akechi doesn’t have an answer for that. He could argue that he doesn’t see the point, but a part of him truly does. The part of him that wouldn’t stop texting _that person_ over and over again, back when he could excuse it as espionage. He knows now that that’s bullshit. He still doesn’t see the point, but there’s no denying that he was drawn to him because of the little pieces of himself he saw in there. If that’s how Shibusawa sees him, then perhaps it doesn’t matter what his motives are. Sometimes no one has any idea what the fuck they’re doing, he muses.

But. “It _is_ selfish,” Akechi points out, and doesn’t say anything further on the matter. They sit in silence while Shibusawa finishes his drink.

He borrows some pajama pants and a faded Featherman t-shirt from Shibusawa, and accepts the glass of water that is wordlessly handed to him. Somewhere in there, he feels something grow inside of him, like a single chain sprouting a new link. He knows instinctively that, somehow, tonight has strengthened their bond. The sensation abruptly reminds him of that confessional booth, the one that he’s visited in his dreams several times already but hasn’t gotten any more comfortable with. He can’t help but flinch every time he wakes up there, an unpleasant reminder that his heart continues to seek a salvation it’ll never get.

“Shibusawa.” He had been on his way out. Akechi waits for him to stop, just outside the door. “You said you sold your friend out to Shido. You ruined his life, and he forgave you for it.”

Shibusawa’s energy had been visibly flagging up until that point. Now, his shoulders lose their slump as he turns around to regard Akechi warily. “I did say that, yeah. What of it?”

Akechi remembers the look on his mother’s face every time she left the confessional. Tired, relieved, but bitter with the knowledge that she’d be back there again someday soon.

“Did you ever forgive yourself for what you did?” he asks. 

Shibusawa raises his eyebrows briefly. After reading whatever must be on Akechi’s face, he sighs, chuckles, shrugs his shoulders. “Nope.”

When Akechi doesn’t add anything else--it’s the answer he had expected, after all--Shibusawa yawns one last ‘goodnight’ and finally pads back to his room, shutting the door behind himself. Akechi continues to stare at that door, long after Shibusawa’s snoring has begun. He feels relieved, somehow. He doesn’t understand it, but that’s how he feels.

He lies down on the couch and stares at the shadows crawling along the ceiling, a relatively familiar sight in an unfamiliar setting. The city both does and doesn’t feel like home to him, now that he’s actually here. His apartment is gone, his career is gone. All the buildings and streets are the same, and some of his old haunts are still intact, but the city has always been in constant change and it hasn’t made an exception for him. Nothing from his former life is left waiting for him anymore. Nothing, except…

_ “I’ll hold onto your glove,” _ Ren had told him. How long until he returns? How long until their paths inevitably cross again?

It takes a while for him to fall asleep, his mind too full of Ren now that he’s back in the city where they first met. But he does, eventually, eyes sliding shut, the Calls of Rebellion and Chaos stirring restlessly within him.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Aaaaand that's a wrap!
> 
> I've said this like a million times already but 1) thank you to everyone who's been following along! and 2) there will be another part after this, this is just the prologue to another fic that I've been working on in the background.
> 
> Initially I was going to make the next fic take place in the year before Ren returns to Tokyo, but I made a last minute decision and revised this last chapter to reflect that. SO yeah expect some Shuake in the upcoming sequel! (Yeah, good luck carving that path around him, Akechi bud)
> 
> Here's a quick sneak peek at the summary for it:
> 
> "One year after the Phantom Thieves disband, it turns out that messing with the fabric of reality twice in a row has blurred the lines between fact and fiction. Now it’s up to Goro Akechi to uncover the truth behind the myths, building his power and confidants along the way. But even though the world has forgotten him, the ghosts from his past will never truly go away…
> 
> A monster-of-the-week episodic mystery starring Akechi and the characters who become his confidants."
> 
> The next part is taking a little longer than expected but I'm hoping to have it up within the next week or so. Hope to see y'all then!


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